After milling about in confusion yesterday, I've finally settled what I intend to do with this LJ account. Posting my bio as the first post. Department of Redundancy Department, me.

---

Okay, so I was talking to a friend about online personas, and how many exactly were "needed". Seems to vary depending on one's life; the friend also needed SCA personas, for example.

My own count is four for now:

One for real-person stuff: Facebook, LinkedIn, keeping in touch with family. It's reasonable to assume that a potential employer might locate all of these with ease.

One for the pen name. Professional, yet very personal. Not currently active online, but I'm pretty sure that's temporary.

One for inward-facing topics. Yeah, that's where my online life started: posting daily details and ongoing angst that could only be of interest to people who know me, or possibly only to myself.

And then the fourth persona, this one, the space between the other three. This space is for outward-facing discussions, and attempts to provide some small value to the online world, and for doing that without cluttering it up with personal issues.

Content-wise, we're talking essays and fiction.Involvement-wise, this persona is more extroverted, actively seeking out people and topics of interest. Well, when I can manage it. And I'll ask to friend any interesting strangers, and be generally happy to friend anyone who asks it of me.

The walls between personas are pretty thin, and can break without warning. If (when) that happens, I'll deal with it. ...So, why bother with separate personas at all? Specifically, why separate ones for inward- and outward-facing discussion?

My main reason is that I'd like to examine those two parts of my personality in isolation, at least for now. Moshed together, it gets...complicated. Hard for me to distinguish my influence on others from their influence on me. I want to examine that distinction, and see if I'm comfortable with where things stand.

That said, there will be crossover. Outward opinions are a product of life experiences. But I aim to spare strangers from the dreary details. In the unlikely event that curiosity gets the best of you, just ask and you will probably receive all the detail you'd ever want.